To combat an influx of spam works, we are temporarily suspending the issuing of invitations from our automated queue. This will prevent spammers from getting invitations to create new accounts and give our all-volunteer teams time to clean up existing spam accounts and works. We will keep you updated about further developments on our Twitter account. Please read on for details.

The problem

We have been dealing with two issues affecting the Archive, both in terms of server health and user experience.

Spammers who sign up for accounts only to post thousands of fake "works" (various kinds of advertisements) with the help of automated scripts.

People who use bots to download works in bulk, to the point where it affects site speed and server uptime for everyone else.

Measures we've taken so far

We have been trying several things to keep both problems in check:

The Abuse team has been manually banning accounts that post spam.

We are also keeping an eye on the invitation queue for email addresses that follow discernible patterns and removing them from the queue. This is getting trickier as the spammers adjust.

We delete the bulk of spam works from the database directly, as individual work deletion would clearly be an overwhelming task for the Abuse team; however, this requires people with the necessary skills and access to be available.

Our volunteer sysadmin has been setting up various server scripts and settings aimed at catching spammers and download bots before they can do too much damage. This requires a lot of tweaking to adjust to new bots and prevent real users from being banned.

Much of this has cut into our volunteers' holiday time, and we extend heartfelt thanks to everyone who's been chipping in to keep the Archive going through our busiest days.

What we're doing now

Our Abuse team needs a chance to catch up on all reported spamming accounts and make sure that all spam works are deleted. Currently the spammers are creating new accounts faster than we can ban them. Our sysadmins and coders need some time to come up with a sustainable solution to prevent further bot attacks.

To that end, we're temporarily suspending issuing invites from our automated queue. Existing account holders can still request invite codes and share them with friends. You can use existing invites to sign up for an account; account creation itself will not be affected. (Please note: Requests for invite codes have to be manually approved by a site admin, so there might be a delay of two to three days before you receive them; challenge moderators can contact Support for invites if their project is about to open.)

We are working hard to get these problems under control, so the invite queue should be back in business soon! Thank you for your patience as we work through the issues.

What you can do

There are some things you can do to help:

When downloading multiple works, wait a few moments between each download. If you're downloading too many works at once, you will be taken to an error page warning you to slow down or risk being blocked from accessing the Archive for 24 hours.

Please don't report spam works. While we appreciate all the reports we've received so far, we now have a system in place that allows us to find spam quickly. Responding to reports of spam takes time away from dealing with it.

Known problems with the automated download limit

We have been getting reports of users who run into a message about excessive downloads even if they were downloading only a few works, or none at all. This may happen for several reasons that are unfortunately beyond our control:

They pressed the download button once, but their device went on a rampage trying to download the file many times. A possible cause for this might be a download accelerator, so try disabling any relevant browser extensions or software, or try downloading works in another browser or device.

They share an IP address with a group of people, one of whom hit the current download limit and got everyone else with the same IP address banned as well. This can be caused by VPNs, Tor software, or an ISP who assigns the same IP address to a group of customers (more likely to happen on phones). Please try using a different device, if you can.

We apologize if you have to deal with any of these and we'll do our best to restore proper access for all users as soon as possible!

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MaC
Sun04Jan201508:34AMEST

Thank you for all the work that goes on in the background to keep A03 up and running. It is very much appreciated.I Mod other forums; and I don't know if you already use it, but StopForumSpam can be used in such a way that known spammers don't get access to forums. The automatic spam ban feature can also be used to send reports to them to add to the list of undesirables, and that saves other sites from their predation too.Best wishes sorting it all out.Mary

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I hope not - Captchas are notoriously inaccessible if you don't have good vision or hearing. On top of that, automated spam is starting to get smart enough to solve Captchas, that major providers such as Google are stepping away from them.

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Captcha 2 is an option, though. Instead of asking you to input words or numbers, it'll do things like ask questions in this vein:

"What is Joe's name?"

"In the list 2, 3, 7, 9, what is the only even number?"

A bot can't figure out how to answer the question because the bot can't actually read the words in the sentence, and they're more accessible for folks with sight/hearing loss. The answer is always provided within the question itself, so all you have to do is pull it out, and Captcha 2 questions are very short, so should pose little difficulty for those with dyslexia.

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I agree - FFDL is hugely helpful for me as it's much easier to keep my offline library organized. my internet connection isn't super reliable, and I'm not supposed to use much data on my phone since others in my family need it more, and FFDL is great for me to be able to keep a list of what I want to read and hove those works saved on my phone for when I get a chance.

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This is so much appreciated for all of us who's using this wonderful site..AO3♡♡♡thank you so much!!!!! We are definitely willing to wait no matter how long it will take....god bless and more power to the admin.

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You guys and gals are awesome! It is a shame that you had to work/volunteer over the holidays, but PLEASE know just how much we appreciate it! I've found such a great group of fellow readers and writers here on ao3--just know you are not taken for granted.

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I don't know if it would work for your system, but it is often very effective to add a hidden field for input. A real user would not use it as they can't see it, but a bot would see it an fill it. That would give you some indication of bots. Best of luck with the spam fighting.